One Month Until Track Starts

With roughly one month until the spring track season starts in most states, it’s time to start thinking a bit more seriously about your preseason training. What you do now, however, depends on what you’ve been doing since cross country ended in the fall. Some training concepts, however, apply to all runners.

First, the primary goal should be to get a little better every day. As my college coach, Mark Wetmore, used to say, “Baby steps.” The baby-steps approach to training can be a bit boring and often you won’t see a dramatic improvement from day to day, so you have to be patient. One way to get a little better each day is to simply show up to all of the practices, including the nonmandatory practices and the daily off-season workouts. Get a little better with your aerobic workouts, get a little better with your mechanics when doing strides, get a little better with your body positions and when doing core work, etc. Baby steps lead to PRs — as long as you are patient with the process.

Second, you need to value your recovery days to keep advancing your fitness. This fits with the first point about baby steps: Sometimes the next step in your training is just an easy aerobic run and some strides at 1600m pace. Or it could be a day off every week or every other week. The bottom line is the human body will make a physiological adaptation to the stress of training, but only if you give the body adequate time to recover from that stress. So make sure that you have recovery days in your training plan, and make sure you trust that recovery is part of intelligent training.

Third, if you embrace taking baby steps, then you are committing to not trying to take big “leaps” or shortcuts in your training. What I mean is you don'’ need to run 12 miles for your long run when your coach assigns 10. They assigned 10 for a reason, and you doing more isn’t part of the plan. You are prone to injury at these moments — when you do more than assigned, or you run a workout all out rather than “hard, but controlled.” If you’re patient and trust your coach's plan, you’ll likely make some nice jumps this spring, running PRs at a variety of distances. But don’t go into a workout or a long run with the mentality that one workout is going to make or break your season. You’re looking for a series of baby steps forward, not one big leap forward followed by several steps back.

With those points in mind, let’s look at what athletes with different levels of fitness should focus on one month out. We’re fortunate that two of the best high school coaches in the country — Greg Weich of Broomfield, Colorado, and Bill Aris of Fayetteville-Manlius in New York — have shared their wisdom with us.

Athlete #1: Planned to run in the winter but didn't do much running.

Bill Aris: If your starting point is basically ground zero, start running as little as 20-30 minutes a day (can include as many walking breaks as needed if in “zero” condition), then gradually increase your running time up to 45-60 minutes a day while gradually decreasing the walking breaks until you are running a solid 45-60 minutes five days per week. At that point, the quality of the running (i.e., moderate workouts of varying duration and intensity) can be woven into your training plan.

Coach Aris also advises his athletes to work on their core, to work on strength training and to work on stretching. I recommend all athletes start the eight-week General Strength and Mobility (GSM) progression. This progression has been tested by hundreds of runners, and by following it, you will see improvements in both strength and mobility over the eight weeks.

If you read Running Times, you’re familiar with Phil and Jim Wharton and their flexibility work. Phil Wharton identifies five important stretches for runners in this article: "Stretches to Improve Flexibility".

Athlete #2: Ran consistently this winter, but mileage was moderate.

Greg Weich: If you have been running in the 30-mile range all winter, I would advise a faster volume increase. I would go from 30 (since this number of total miles is easily mastered by this athlete) to 37, then straight to 45. I would do this by adding miles to four of your runs each week, particularly adding to your longest run. I would leave the shorter days alone. I would also introduce 2 to 4x150m strides every other day postrun if the athlete hasn't been doing that regularly. Once total volume is reached, I would introduce fartlek two times per week (something like 1 minute XC pace/1 minute steady is a good way to start) to get you ready to transition to hills and to better handle the faster workouts to be performed at race pace later in the season. By the first week of practice, you should be able to do a weekly 3-4 mile run at or around LT pace (tempo run).

I’m a huge advocate of fartlek workouts for advancing fitness in the early part of a training cycle. It’s a great way to get some neuromuscular work at race pace into your training, yet the workout, if executed correctly, is aerobic. For some more information on fartlek workouts, check out “The Jump” article.

As Coach Weich says, strides are a must for all track runners and need to be implemented from day one. The distance and the pace vary from program to program, but one simple concept is that you need to be doing strides at race pace (distance can vary from 100m to 200m).

Athlete #3: Ran high mileage (40+ miles/week) all winter.

Bill Aris: Congratulations. You are likely competitively driven and have goals of excellent performances in the spring track season. You probably are already aware of the facets of total body conditioning via core, stretching and strength work. If not, get started, as it will serve to augment your already strong aerobic condition in preparation of the higher quality work that awaits you in the upcoming months.

Greg Weich: You can likely handle anything the coach might want to introduce. If you’re not there yet, increase you miles up to 50-55 miles per week consistently. From here until track starts, transition into 2x-weekly fartlek runs, with one session of hill reps and an LT run (up to 5 miles) before the first official week starts. In short, you have performed all the foundational work and transitional work by the time the first day starts. You are ready to get going right away. You will likely enjoy season-to-season improvements because of your consistency in volume and progression of intensity and quality of workouts all four years of high school.

The word I think about with this athlete is consistency. If you ask the world’s best runners what the most important elements of training are, you’ll find consistency on almost every list. Why? Because consistency in training, training where you stay injury-free and you make small steps each day, each week, each month, almost always leads to PRs. Runners who have embraced the challenge of daily hard work are rewarded in the spring with PRs.

Athlete #4: Participated in a winter sport.

Greg Weich: Your training plan will look a lot like the athletes who have run consistent moderate mileage. You are ready to transition quickly to full volume, because you have been active in your winter sport. Basketball players transition more quickly than other athletes, particularly if their basketball coaches are conditioning-oriented. I encourage athletes who do winter sports to take their conditioning days seriously, and their weight programs just as seriously.

The best male athlete I ever coached, Brent Vaughn, came out of basketball. He was a great athlete: well-conditioned, disciplined and had a variety of tools (including explosiveness and muscle elasticity) available to him, which made his transition into the middle-distances of high school track a very successful one (1:57 800m, 4:14.41 at 5400 feet, and 8:45.60 for 3200m).

Regardless of your fitness coming into the spring track season, there is no reason you can’t run PRs. Best of luck this spring — and remember to take baby steps in your training.

Jay Johnson is the director of the Boulder Running Camps, the nation’s premier high school running camp. For more information, visit www.BoulderRunningCamps.com.